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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23947393">Wounded Skies</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunlitRiddle/pseuds/AerithReborn'>AerithReborn (SunlitRiddle)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy VII</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Apocalypse, Deathfic, Gen, Swearing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2006-03-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2006-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:09:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>16,852</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23947393</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunlitRiddle/pseuds/AerithReborn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>originally posted 2006 on deviantArt and fanfiction.net as "Restart Redux"</p><p>Crater, the final battle.  Cloud and his team mates, his friends, his brothers and sisters in arms descend into the gaping wound in the Planet's surface.  They face off against Sephiroth... and lose.  And then the world ends.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cid Highwind/Shera, Lucrecia Crescent/Vincent Valentine, Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife, Zack Fair/Aerith Gainsborough</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Holy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>most of this chapter is a novelization of the game.  I recorded playing on a VHS and had to manually play-rewind-play to see and interpret what the sprite gestures might mean.  Things don't diverge from the main story until close to the end of the chapter.  the temptation to edit is strong... but then I'd have to edit the whole thing into the garbage.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sun dawned a rosy pink that filtered through the misty veil of morning and reflected off of the sides of the airship hovering just above the couple.  The woman’s deep chestnut eyes followed the shadows releasing the ship, but then she couldn’t watch any longer.  Her hands flopped limply at her sides and she shook her head.  Her companion stood from where he had been thinking, not facing the hulking body of the ship, and moved to her side.  He cleared his throat.  “We’d better go.”<br/><br/>The woman turned to the voice and rested those fearful eyes on the man.  “But, I still…!?”<br/><br/>“It’s alright, Tifa,” he said, shaking his head.  “You said so yourself yesterday.  At least we don’t have to go alone.”<br/><br/>Tifa chewed on her lip in thought.  “Yes…”  She nodded.  “That’s right!”<br/><br/>“Okay!  Let’s go!” Cloud said with a grin, and they turned back to the airship.  As they entered the cavernous belly, a cool wind caressed their faces.  Though the usual droning of gears hummed gently in the background, the otherwise eerie silence caught their ears.  A day ago, the hall had been full of the voices of the people they loved and trusted, their chocobo they had all raised had warbled in its stall, and that ninja girl moaned and complained as her stomach rebelled against the ship’s motions.  Today, the silence weighed down on their already heavy spirits.<br/><br/>“The airship’s too big for just the two of us,” Tifa murmured as she glanced around the empty room.  “Yeah, it’s a little lonely without everyone.”<br/><br/>Cloud glanced over his shoulder, then drew close to his companion.  He rested his hand on her shoulder and raised her lowered chin.  “Don’t worry.  It’ll be okay.”  Leaping away from her, he grinned a strained grin and danced a little on the catwalk.  “I’ll make a big enough ruckus for everyone.”  Tifa just blinked, Cloud cleared his throat and gave an uneasy laugh.  He idly batted at a strand of hair that had fallen in over his eyes with a gloved finger.  “Besides, I’m the pilot.  No more flying around casually like before.  We won’t have time to feel lonely.”<br/><br/>Though she didn’t feel any better, the woman nodded knowing that there was not much to do about the others.  They had all been given the option of staying with the team and fighting, or spending their last few days with loved ones.  Had she had family, Tifa would have left, but her family was Cloud and his family was Tifa.  They were in it for the long run, and that was a lonely position.  But if they could die together….<br/><br/>The thoughts the two had been drowning in shattered as engines fired up from their idle humming and the ship gave a great lurch as it began lifting off from the ground.  Cloud and Tifa exchanged glances and rushed onto the bridge.  The early morning light flooded bright and clear through the front window silhouetting two figures hunched over the control panel.  “Barret!  Cid!” Cloud shouted, hardly believing his eyes.<br/><br/>The larger silhouette turned away from the levers and glanced from one dumbfounded face to the other.  “O, oh… is that okay with you?”  As though these words were a signal, the four absent allies stepped from the shadows and took their usual positions on the bridge.  <br/><br/>Cloud leaped out of the way as Yuffie dashed out of the room and back to the rail.  His mako-blue eyes took in the whole group, resting on one person at a time.  He had to swallow before he could speak.  “Thanks everyone.”<br/><br/>Barret, wiping his own eyes but camouflaging it as just rubbing, retorted, “We didn’t come back for your spiky-headed ass!  We came back for Marlene.  Guess it’s jes’ my… whatcha call, feelings or somethin’.  I, uh, I ain’t got no words now…”<br/><br/>Red XIII stepped up from his resting place, head hung low, knowing that he had to speak the thoughts haunting everyone’s minds: there was one still missing.  “…Although she’s not here, she left us a window of opportunity…”<br/><br/>“We can’t let it go like this,” Cid finished with a nod and turned to Cloud.<br/><br/>The mercenary turned away from the others’ eyes and stared out the front window.  The ground seemed so far away from this place in the air.  He spoke tightly, fighting back the sorrow and guilt that threatened to rule him, “…Aerith.”  Her name came out in a breath.  “She was smiling to the end.  We have to do something or that smile will just freeze like that.”  He turned back to the group, ignoring the hot tears burning in his eyes.  “Let’s all go together.  Memories of Aerith…”  He cleared his throat.  “Although she should’ve returned to the Planet by now, something’s stopped her and now she’s stuck.  We’ve got to let go of Aerith’s memory.”<br/><br/>“Has anyone here changed their mind?” Cid asked.  A determined silence responded.<br/><br/>Cloud nodded at the resolute reply.  “I’m counting on you, Cid.”<br/><br/>“All right, so what should I do?  You decide, Cloud.”<br/><br/>Only the white glow from the mist just outside the window silhouetted the leader, standing a little taller within the gaze of the people who had become family.  “This is our last battle.  Our target is the North Cave.  Our enemy is… Sephiroth.”  He thrust his fist into the air yelling, “So let’s move out!”</p>
<p><br/>Cid began flipping levers and pushing buttons to trigger the airship’s transformation from propellers to the experimental rockets recently installed on the Highwind.<br/><br/>There was an incredible burst of speed and the ground far below fell away like a rushing river.  Cloud watched it all pass through narrowed eyes locked on the far northern horizon, waiting for the Crater to peek over the rim of the world.  “We’re almost to the North Cave.  We’re on our way, Sephiroth!”<br/><br/>“Man, I’m going to stick it to him!” Cid shouted in agreement before being pulled back to duty by an alarm and flashing warning lights.<br/><br/>“What is it, Cid?”<br/><br/>“Some incredible force!  Losing… control…!”  It was then that the crew of the Highwind leaped from their hiding places and rushed to the aid of their Captain.  Despite Cid’s threats and curses, their loyalty is what really got him through those moments and gave him the strength to open up the new rockets and devour the distance to Crater.<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>Did Lady Luck smile down onto the weary souls just above Crater?  Did Fortuna bless this party before they journeyed deep into Hell?  Not to the eyes turned toward the depths of the earth, nor to the crewman unrolling the rope ladder to Crater’s lip.  Inside the airship, not far enough away from the oppressive atmosphere, Cloud paused at the great window in an attempt to procrastinate descending into the claws of his own devil.  His mako blue eyes stared into the shadowed depths as though piercing the veil between worlds.  Barret chuckled to himself from his place by the window, carefully looking away.  “Time’s got a way of sneakin’ up on ya, huh?  I’m shakin’ all over….”  His nervous laughter faded away as he deflated.  “I feel sick…”<br/><br/>Tifa walked up to her friend and placed a hand on his shoulder.  “Hey, Cloud… would you tell me ‘It’s all right’?”<br/><br/>Cloud turned to her, plastered on the toughest grin he could muster, and ran a hand through his chaotically spiked hair.  “It’s all right, Tifa.”  Only he winced at the audacity in his voice, feeling as though he was tempting fate.<br/><br/>Tifa, however, clapped her hands together and practically beamed.  “Now I feel like things are really going to be all right.  Thanks, Cloud.”<br/><br/>Duty was a heavy burden that Cloud shouldered, but he couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling deep inside that only grew as he waited.  He made his way back out to the deck, not looking back but knowing that the others would be following in their own time.  Standing at the railing, it was all he could do to not gasp as the brutal northern wind sliced through the SOLDIER turtleneck sweater.  He clenched his teeth in resolve and descended down the rope ladder that was whipping about in the gales.  The edge of the crater was uncomfortably close once he was down and watching the tips of his boots knock pebbles into the pit.  Just below the lip, Cloud could see a narrow trail – an unsteady outcropping, really.  “Looks like we can only slide down,” he murmured to himself.  Taking a breath, he closed his eyes in prayer or maybe just telling himself what a fool he was.  “Alright, let’s go.”  He took a couple steps back to get a running start and took a blind leap of faith into the gaping maw.  It seemed like eternity he hung there in the air before he twisted his body and landed in a crouch on the narrow path.  He gave a small whisper of thanks to the SOLDIER program, then shook his head as he kicked himself.  Cloud had never been in SOLDIER.  There was little to keep him from his goal, not even the crumbling rocks from beneath his feet.  It was an ‘unsteady outcropping’ after all.<br/><br/>If the winding, crumbling trail reminded Cloud of the ShinRa mansion, then the labyrinth of tunnels he now entered was just like the trail through the Nibel Mountains.  Had he been born anywhere else in the world, this maze would have driven him mad, but it was almost a relief to be in familiar territory.  His feet practically found their own way out.  The tunnel opened into a massive cavern where a couple of the party were standing around, and the others soon drifted in.  Cloud spent a few minutes surveying the area.  “The road splits in two.  We’ll split into two groups.  Tifa, Vincent, you’re with me.  The rest of you take the other path,” his voice became grim.  “Now don’t any of you die on me…” he cleared a voice that had begun wavering.  “Gotta get through to Sephiroth!”<br/><br/>Vincent walked forward, his somber eyes staring out from behind a veil of raven locks.  “It’s all over now.  With this…”<br/><br/>Yuffie, on the other hand, slumped her shoulders and kicked at a rock halfheartedly.  “Oh man… ‘Materia Hunter Yuffie’ sounds like the last chapter of ‘Materia Forever’,” she pouted.<br/><br/>“All life on this Planet, indeed the very life of this Planet is in our hands…” Red said, ignoring the ninja’s whining.<br/><br/>Cait chirped up with his usual optimistic tone.  “I’m so happy to have met you all, really!”  It was Reeve they heard through the act, and it sounded final.<br/><br/>Barret was the last to say his goodbyes.  He walked over to Cloud and Tifa and clapped his big hand over the leader’s shoulder though he addressed them both.  “Well… looks like this is our last big job!”  Tifa took a moment to throw her arms around him in a quick hug; he tried to hide the moisture in his eyes by turning to the others and began to trudge down their path.<br/><br/>Once they were out of sight, Cloud turned to his small party.  “This will be the end of it!”  Vincent and Tifa both nod and begin the trek down their own tunnel.  Besides the usual scattering of monsters made powerful by the heavy amounts of residual mako in the area, their only interruption was when their path split.  If Vincent hadn’t been there with his cool logic, they would have listened to Cloud and split once again to cover both.  Instead, the ex-Turk suggested the lower path.  Finally, the tunnel opened up into another, deeper cavern.  High above, the mouth of the crater stared up at them like the eye of God, but no one looked to the heavens.  Their eyes were drawn to the golden mist that boiled out from the second crater at their feet, glowing and pulsing green.  It was through this almost overbearing light that Cloud and the others squinted into, noting the stones that formed a stairway into the heart.  A corrupt parody of the pathway to the City of the Ancients is what it was.  Hands flew to weapons at the scraping and rustling coming from a different opening.  Once Barret first tumbled out, then the others, Cloud’s hand released its grip on his sword.  The large gunner separated himself from the heap and smiled in a rather sheepish manner.  “Yo,” he hailed, “we’re a bit late?”<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>Quite a while passed down in that purgatory, each feeling that he was stretched between heaven and hell.  Everyone had taken to either stealing wary glances to the smoking pit, else turned their eyes entirely elsewhere as though willing the pit away.  Cloud, though, hadn’t ceased his masochistic vigil.  “This is the center of the Planet…?” he thought aloud.<br/><br/>Cid shot a glance to his leader then returned to his own thoughts, watching the gently smoking tip of his third cigarette.  “Let’s just get this over with!”<br/><br/>“This is it,” Tifa agreed and pulled her eyes to the pit.<br/><br/>Barret snapped the hinge of his gunarm shut, watching it load itself in whirring gears and clicks.  “Awright, this’s the last dance!”<br/><br/>With a breath somewhere between fear and wonder, Red murmured, “We finally made it here.”<br/><br/>“Well, shall we get goin’?” Cait responded in his false enthusiasm; Reeve’s echo was strained.<br/><br/>Vincent, however, watched the pit’s glow reflect off of five bronze claws, each a little knife, each glittering in the light from hell.  He wasn’t thinking about death of himself, but of the others.  “Being with you all is not so bad,” he said in a subdued whisper.<br/><br/>Cloud couldn’t help the grin that surfaced at his friend’s attempt at fellowship.  It, more than anything else, brightened his hopes.  With a renewed vigor, he turned to face the rest of the party.  “All right, everyone, let’s mosey.”<br/><br/>“Damn!  Again!”  Cid choked on his cigarette and spun to face his leader.  “Stop sayin’ it like a wimp!  Can’t you say ‘Move out!’ or somethin’?”<br/><br/>The mercenary looked properly ashamed, scratching his hair like a boy.  Before long, though, a gleam came to his eye and he returned to being their fearless leader, calling for them to “Move out!!”  Rather than his comrades’ cheers, innumerable monsters filling the crater answered his call.<br/><br/>Barret was the first to speak, eyes wide and jaw agape.  “What?”<br/><br/>“Look at the number…” Red added.<br/><br/>Cid’s hand clenched around the shaft of his spear until his knuckles turned white beneath the cloves he wore.  “They’re comin’ out in full force!”<br/><br/>The first glanced over his shoulder but kept his gun aimed at the descending monsters.  “Cloud!  You go first!”<br/><br/>Cloud stood his ground.  “I’m fighting here, too.”<br/><br/>“Shu’up!  It won’t do us no good wit’ everyone back here!”<br/><br/>“Barret’s right,” the captain agreed.  “You take two of us with you and go first.  The rest’ll catch up with ya later.”<br/><br/>Tifa took a moment to adjust her glove, a nervous habit more than anything.  “Is this like a practice run before the real thing?”<br/><br/>Cait gave her a flat look through the corner of his eye, but it was Reeve’s voice that filtered through the stuffed doll’s speaker.  “Yeah, a major practice run…”<br/><br/>“I’m fine with that,” Yuffie commented, taking a couple swipes at the air with a feral laugh.  Aside, she added, “It’s probably more fun than fighting Sephiroth down there.”<br/><br/>The ex-Turk had been ticking off the number to himself while the others bickered.  He had to recount at least twice before he just gave up at ‘a lot’.  “Hmm, this might be fun to pass time.”  Vincent made no acknowledgement of the incredulous looks the others gave him.<br/><br/>Another scream tore through the cavern.  “They’re coming!” Red shouted, ears pricked to the sound.  “They’re already on the floor next to us!”<br/><br/>“Cloud!  Hurry up and make up your mind!”  Barret sounded strained.<br/><br/>“Tifa, Vincent.  You’re with me.”  The two named moved to the young mercenary.  “All of you!”  They stole a glance just long enough to catch Cloud’s wave farewell.  “Later!”<br/><br/>The three never heard Barret respond over the sounds of the attacking monsters as they spiraled down into the Crater’s heart.  It seemed the very soul of the world lit this cavern, even the lowermost platform formed of black cubed crystals.  Cloud sped headlong down the spiraling path, followed closely by Vincent and Tifa.  Each creature they encountered they moved past with all haste, hardly pausing at each step.  After what seemed like an eternity, their boots hit the hematite surface with a resounding chime rather than the previous gravel crunch.  Never hesitating, Cloud walked to the center of the platform, looking around.  “Where are we…?”<br/><br/>With a voice to challenge even the frozen wind, a huge creature appeared from the mist.  Vincent’s sharp breath and Tifa’s gasp of shock both echoed Cloud’s own disgust as he took in the bulging, pulsing body levitating just above the gleaming surface.  The face grinned in a grotesque parody of a woman, once beautiful but turned demonic by hate.  “Jenova…!?”  Cloud exclaimed, confused only for a moment.  He gripped his sword’s hilt with a steely determination and took off full tilt against the monster.  The creature’s appendage caught Cloud in the stomach and threw him clear across the arena.  Tifa gasped and ran to the man’s side; Vincent providing cover with expertly placed shots from Quicksilver.<br/><br/>On the ground where he landed, Cloud winced and gripped his now bruised side.  When Tifa ran up and found him alright, she was filled with a protective fury.  “You’re an idiot, you know that, Cloud?  You never think before acting!”  Nevertheless, she reached down and gave him a hand up.  “We might not always be here to cover your back."<br/><br/>Cloud shook his head ruefully, acknowledging that she was right, then assessed the situation.  Vincent continued to squeeze shot after shot into Jenova’s seemingly immortal form.  One arm finally succumbed to the attacks and lay limp at the monster’s side.  That gave him an idea.  “You and Vincent take the other arm.  I’ll come from the front."<br/><br/>The two companions nodded and began their attack at the flailing tentacle.  Tifa sprinted forward and wrapped it around her wrist and pinned it down as Vincent landed shot after shot just above the fearless woman’s head.  At her signal, Cloud took off running at the creature’s main body, hacking with a graceless ferocity until both he and Buster Sword were covered in black blood.  He took a step back, gasping for breath, and wiped his eyes clear of the tar-like substance.  Suddenly, he blinked, watching Jenova’s wounds close and seam together as though they’d never been.  Confused, he stole a glance over to Tifa who was growing steadily weaker as the beast grew stronger.  Before he could run to her rescue, she was flung to the ground.<br/><br/>“Tifa!” Cloud shouted and knelt by her stunned body.  Just after Tifa groaned and showed signs of waking, he rounded on the creature in a fury.  The mercenary raised his sword and prepared for another attack though was caught off guard.  A powerful poison spell hit him and he was forced to one knee, resting most of his weight on his weapon.  Vincent, glancing through the corner of his eye, redoubled his effort to buy Cloud just a little time.  Jenova turned her grotesque head toward his gunfire.<br/><br/>Cloud had fallen to the cold stone by the time Tifa had finally woken from her stunned state.  One hand reached into her item bag and fished out a Remedy while the other had already begun pulling him away from his blood-tinged vomit that was sprayed on the mirror surface.  She wiped his blonde hair away from his cold sweat soaked brow and tipped the vial to his lips.  “Come on, Cloud.”  The precious liquid dribbled down the side of his chin.  Hurriedly, she caught it in the glass vial.  “Drink this.  Please!”  Finally, the cool medicine poured into his mouth and down his throat.  The woman was denied any relief, however, as her mind is filled with a voice.  <em>Five,</em> it said.  Her head snapped to Jenova levitating there in the center of the platform.  The rhythmic double gunshot missed a beat; the only sign that Vincent even heard the voice, but his eyes had narrowed and the shots came faster.  Tifa spun her focus back to Cloud who was only just finding his way back from the Bio induced fever.  “Focus on me, Cloud!  I’m right here.”  His eyes blinked the film clear and he wiped the bile from his lips.  Again, that voice filled their minds.  <em>Four.</em><br/><br/>Above any one else, Cloud knew that voice, having it whisper in his ear through countless nights.  He clenched his hand around Buster Sword’s hilt and leapt to his feet.  “Not this time, Jenova.  This is where it ends!”  With a yell, the mercenary flung himself sword first into the pulsing monster, impaling it deep.  He wasn’t satisfied with the dark blood pouring out around his sword, however.  He flipped his right hand around, gathered his legs beneath him and pushed off with all the strength his mako-enhanced body could muster.  The heavy blade carved its way straight up through Jenova until it freed itself from her skull and Cloud jumped back to admire Climhazzard’s handy work.  His grin slipped as he realized that the bloody ruin of a body was still living, and still whispering to them.  <em>Three,</em> it said.  “Shit…” The mercenary whispered, taking an involuntary step backwards.  Ashamed at his weakness, he regripped his blade and squared off against the levitating creature.  <em>Two.</em><br/><br/>A soft, unmistakable click echoed in the vast chamber as Vincent reloaded Quicksilver.  His deep red eyes narrowed down the barrel of the gun.  “Die” was the only word that escaped his lips as he pulled the trigger.  Two bullets sped across time as Jenova voiced One and came to a thudding halt somewhere deep in its brain.  The force that had been keeping it hovering just inches above the hematite surface evaporated and the shell once housing Jenova crashed in a bloody, mangled heap.<br/>With the danger now passed, the dark shroud that had hardened their features lifted.  Cloud walked up to the corpse with a half smile playing across his face and poked the tip of his sword into the bloody pulp.  “Here we are, saving the world, and there’s not a single gil for the Crisis from the Skies.”<br/><br/>Tifa shook her head, not trying to hide her own relieved smile.  “You’re an idiot, Cloud.”  This time, it wasn’t meant as an insult.  Together, they watched as the husk dissolved into the Lifestream with a caustic hiss, Jenova vanishing before their very eyes.  They had very little time to celebrate, however, for it seemed that Jenova’s will had held the platform together.  Each shining hematite cube flew away like a shattering mirror, taking the three warriors even deeper to the heart of the Planet.<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>Darkness pressed in all around Cloud, smothering him.  A soft pulsing light blossomed before his eyes.  “Li…ght…” he breathed as he drifted in that endless night.  “A light… Is this… Is this light… Holy?”  He closed his eyes and allowed it to absorb him completely and chase the shadows from his mind.  The mercenary realized that he had been unconscious when he awoke on a blood red stone platform, the light glowing nearby within a red stone cage.<br/><br/>“Owww… damn, man!’  The familiar voice seemed muffled in the oppressive silence.<br/><br/>Cloud jerked his head around in surprise, spotting the speaker shaking his head on another platform just above him.  “Barret!?”<br/><br/>“What…?” the large gunner looked around from his perch.  “So everyone’s together again…?”  Answering moans struggled against the heavy silence as the others woke.  Just as they begin to take account of their surroundings, the light pulsed a ring of power and the eight of them found themselves in an invisible grip as solid as steel that lifted them into the air.  They froze midstruggle as arrogant mako-green eyes invaded their minds.  As though stepping from a fold of reality, the owner of those eyes emerged in a swirl of silver hair and black leather.<br/><br/>“…Sephiroth!!” Pure hatred turned the name into a curse as it tore free from Cloud’s lips.  The General hardly glanced his way; instead another burning ring pulsed free from the light.<br/><br/>“Is this…” Barret could hardly speak around the pain tearing through him, “the true power of Sephiroth?”<br/><br/>Cid’s limbs seemed to be stretching to their limit.  “My… my body…” he gasped.  “I can’t control my body…!?”  A sadistic smile skewed Sephiroth’s features as he first brought the eight of them close then held them as another wave of energy ripped through their bodies.<br/><br/>“My front legs… my hind legs…” Red panted, tears streaming from his one good eye, “my tail’s about to tear off!!”<br/><br/>Cait Sith was blessedly immune from the pain.  “This is definitely not good… He’s way outta our league…”  Unfortunately, Reeve’s call for retreat fell on deaf ears.<br/><br/>“I,” Yuffie squeezed her eyes shut and forced the tremble from her voice, “I don’t know if I can… go on…”  Sephiroth merely laughed and spun them about like toys, mocking them with his power.<br/><br/>“Cloud…” Tifa called out, barely above a whimper.  “Cloud…”<br/><br/>The mercenary could do no more than grunt in reply, having to fight both physical anguish and the General’s mocking laughter in his mind.  Another ring tore through his thoughts.  “…there…” he struggled to voice.  “It’s… there…”<br/><br/>Tifa could barely open her eyes against the pain.  “Cloud…?” she whispered, confused.  Another pulse shattered her train of thought.<br/><br/>“…Holy… Holy is there…”  The mercenary forced the words through numb lips, his own thoughts scattering.  “The Holy is shining… Aerith’s prayer is shining…!”<br/><br/>“Holy…” she tried to piece together.  Finally, the name made sense.  “Aerith…”<br/><br/>One more pulse tore through the captive party, but Cloud grit his teeth and stood firm against the pain.  “It’s not over yet…” he gasped.  “This isn’t the end yet!!”  His will, along with Tifa and Vincent’s, held them steady through the final, strongest wave of energy that knocked the others to the platforms.<br/><br/>Tifa glared pure defiance toward Sephiroth, the man who tore her life apart – hers and so many others.  “…We’re not gonna lose!!  Aerith is here…” she stole a glance at the white light trapped within the red stone cage.  “Everyone is here…. Cloud is here with us!  There’s still many things for us to do… I’m not giving up!!”  Vincent spoke volumes with the single poisonous look with which he concluded Tifa’s speech.<br/><br/>Cloud locked eyes, blue to green, with his nemesis, hatred and anger a fire burning deep within his chest.  “Aerith’s memories…” he could see her soft smile and her willful stance, “our memories…” how long had he stood at Tifa’s window all those years ago?  “We came… to tell you… our memories…”  For a moment, he broke eye contact with the General and addressed the empty hollow.  “Come Planet!  Show us your answer!”  His voice echoed into the vast silence, and he once again sought out the black-garbed man.  “And Sephiroth!  To the settling of everything!”  The mercenary brandished the Buster Sword while his companions readied their own weapons.  Sephiroth, however, merely laughed in response and began to emanate a vile light.  Calling upon the final dredges of Jenova’s power, he mutated; the two entities merged into one single being, a horrible parody of angel and puppet master.<br/><br/>Vincent took careful aim, no questions asked, and pulled the trigger.  Two shots rang clear, and then there was silence.  He cursed under his breath as he lowered his weapon.  “Nothing.”<br/><br/>“What?!” Cloud spun around in disbelief, but it was true.  Not a single scratch marred the perfect golden orb that was the bizarre creature’s heart.  While he stared, first one then several lavender specks floated into view.  Confused and more than a bit irritated, he glanced askance to the other two warriors.<br/><br/>“Cloud…” Tifa whispered anxiously, eyes turned upward to watch a dark shadow pass over the brilliant lavender light.  The first thing that emerged from the silhouette was a glint of light from a fine silver chain entwined in the angel’s dark wing, then a spark from the metal braided into his snow white hair.  His katana glittered wickedly in the divine light, the only hint that he would move.  Vincent was the first to taste the ethereal steel, falling to his knees without a mark though that razor sharp blade clearly cut straight through.  The heartless angel didn’t give Tifa a chance to defend herself, darting forward and slashing past her defenses.  With a cry, she collapsed to the ground, barely conscious.<br/><br/>“Damn you,” Cloud muttered through clenched teeth and brought his sword up in defense.  The angel’s eyes – wine splashed cherry blossoms – turned toward the voice, staring through a veil of white hair.  Pale lashes lowered lethargically before he darted forward, quicker than thought, and slashed clear past the mercenary’s defenses.  Cloud’s pain-hazed eyes could barely see the raven-winged creature fade first into the lavender light then to darkness.<br/><br/>Tifa struggled to bring herself to a kneeling position, but she would not face Sephiroth collapsed there on the floor.  She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.  Vincent, too, forced himself to his feet and shook his head to clear his vision.  Cloud merely glared at his adversary and wiped the trickle of blood from his lip.  Though he felt close to death, he didn’t allow himself to show any weakness.    For a moment, he thought that he could see a smirk cross Sephiroth’s face.  A faintly lavender fog filled his vision and he watched as Tifa was swallowed up by the monstrous general’s next attack.  He would have none of that!  He shook the premonition from his mind as he leaped forward, pushing Tifa out of the way of the exploding stone.<br/><br/>She never knew she was screaming until the silence deafened her ears.  Shuddering breaths threatened to tear her chest apart with more screams when her eyes finally found the broken form nearly buried in the blood red rock and dust.  “No…Cloud…”  Tifa’s surrounding blurred until nothing existed except his gently parted lips and closed eyes.  He truly seemed to be sleeping, this silly boy from her memory.  This is no place to rest, Cloud.  She gasped a broken laugh as she fell to her knees by his side and reached to wake him.  No matter how hard she shook him, he remained still beneath the crimson dust.  She removed her hand from his shoulder to find it red from his cooling blood.  Only then did the searing tears flow, leaving streaks in the dust on her own face.  “Cloud…”  She wrapped her arms around her chest, fighting down the consuming cries, suddenly terribly cold.  The memory of their last phoenix down drifted away on the winds of time.  Sorrow shifted like quicksilver into hatred, her chestnut eyes smoldering with vengeance snapped to the malformed general.  “You bloated leech,” she sneered.  “How much blood do you need before you’re satisfied?  Wutai, Nibelheim… Aerith.  And now….”  Her voice faded for a moment then came back even stronger.  “There can never be forgiveness.”  Again blinded by blistering tears, she flew at Sephiroth in a berserker rage, beating and tearing anything she could reach.<br/><br/>Her energy disappeared almost as fast as it came, the heartless angel’s wound taking the strength from her knees and into Vincent’s waiting arms.  The gunman could make out few words other than Cloud’s name and “for me…”  Tifa refocused her eyes on the stoic figure gently setting her down.  Was that sympathy she saw in his eyes?  She curled her lip into a poor imitation of a smile.<br/><br/>Barret watched from his own platform then turned to face the monstrous form.  “Come on, jackass.  Lemme show ya what we got!”  He raised his gunarm and fired his burning lead rain.  Yuffie joined in almost immediately afterwards, her massive shuriken coming from everywhere.  The usually buoyant teenager lost herself in the battle’s rhythm: throw-and-catch-set throw-and-catch-set.<br/><br/>“Let’s go, guys!  We can take him!”  Cait Sith stood aside with his materia, cheering the fighters on.  He sounded strangely hollow, however, as though he didn’t believe his own words.<br/><br/>The grotesque face slowly turned towards the party, an eager and malevolent smile mocking their efforts.  Once again, the luminescent dust drifted down.<br/><br/>Like the others, they glanced up at the lights.  Yuffie giggled nervously and held her hand out as though catching snow.  “Well, we all wondered about Sephiroth,” she drawled the insinuation out, indicating the purple dust in her hands.  “I mean, now we’ve got proof.”<br/><br/>“Shuddup, Yuffie.  Ain’t no time for your dumbass jokes.”  Unlike the ninja, Barret was less interested in the monster’s sexual orientation than with the angel he knew was being summoned.  Both his eyes and his gunarm were trained on the heavens, waiting for the first sign of wings or weapon.  The gleam of white feathers received the first pulse of bullets, but was unperturbed and continued to descend.  The golden tips of messy black hair glowed around the angel in a mockery of a halo, and his blue eyes sought out his first target.  He nocked his white bow, ignoring the constant shower of hot bullets, and aimed first at the robotic cat.  Reeve let loose a cry of frustration as the silver shaft pierced the moogle’s stuffed body and fried the circuits.  The angel caressed the black feather tattooed around his wrist in thought, then fired two shots, one after the other, into the remaining fighters.  They, too, fell to the dirt, barely able to raise their eyes high enough to watch the angel fade away.<br/><br/>“Shit,” Barret cursed through clenched teeth as he struggled to his feet.  “I’m so sick of you!  Go to hell!”<br/><br/>Cait crawled up on top of the now useless moogle and removed a green orb from his megaphone.  Words spilled hurriedly from his lips before he cried out “Cure!”  He was willing the weak spell to work faster when electricity crackled from the ends of his synthetic whiskers.  The chanting paused for just an instant in confusion then ceased entirely as bolts of energy tore his stuffed body to pieces.  The materia fell from the doll’s lifeless fingertips and rolled away.<br/><br/>Yuffie watched the lightning spell flicker away and grabbed for the item bag strapped to her waist, determined to get out of this battle alive.  “Barret!  I got it!” she called as she fumbled with the knotted flap for a potion.  Automatic fire rapped out in staccato bursts, shattering her concentration and trying her already short patience.<br/><br/>The fury built up over the time on the road exploded in a raging fire in Barret’s chest.  “Biggs, Wedge, Jessie.  Aerith.  Cloud.”  The first sharp blasts of cold air were ignored in his madness.  “They’re all dead!  Now you gonna take the whole damn Planet?”  Only when the numbing gusts froze the air in his lungs did he realize the ice spell enveloping him.  “You bastard!  You ain’t gonna take me down!”  He screamed defiance into the winds, still firing.  It was at the peak of the spell, as he felt his life slip into silence, did he whisper, “Marlene…”  Bitter darkness enveloped him, snuffing his life into nothing.<br/><br/>The ninja flung the uselessly knotted bag away and regripped her shuriken.  “Not without a fight, Sephiroth.”  With that, she took off running, tossing the star and ignoring the spray of stone behind her.  She leaped aside to catch the returning weapon, but before she could move, the dirt beneath her feet shifted.  Bitter tears fell from her staring eyes as her body was flung across the ground only to bounce off of a rock, crashing down, sprawled like a broken doll.<br/><br/>Tifa’s cry filled the battleground when she saw her friends fall.  So many of her friends had died on this crusade, her heart was numb from it.  She hefted Cloud’s limp form over her shoulders and called for their retreat.  The remaining members of Avalanche turned and ran, but the retreat felt more like abandonment to Tifa.  “We’ll return with help.  I swear.”<br/><br/>They had almost made it away from the battlegrounds when her vision faded into a tunnel and was pressed into the ground.  She lost her grip on Cloud in her fall beneath the gravity spell.  Vincent returned to her side to help her back up, but she was searching frantically for Cloud.  There, just behind them, he laid in a discarded heap.  The woman breathed a sigh of relief and moved to retrieve him.  Her first footstep closer to him shattered the weakened rock.  Cloud slipped down with the cascading stone; Tifa leaped forward with a cry to grab his wrist, but missed.  Horrified and helpless, she watched as two seconds devoured her love in darkness.  Her chilling scream went on and on forever as madness took control of her mind.  Sorrow, grief, and guilt circled like raging tides as she watched Cloud fall again and again.<br/><br/>“TIFA!  Dammit!” Cid cursed as he pulled her convulsing body from the precipice.  She fought him, grasping back for the edge and screaming.  “He’s gone!  Cloud’s dead!”  His heart chilled as the words escaped his lips, their weight finally coming to light.  “It’s over,” he whispered and reached for the only materia in his cuff.  The captain closed his weary eyes almost in prayer.  The materia’s bright glow illumined the four in sickly chartreuse, stripping away any strength that remained.  Vincent watched the orb in contemplation with eyes already resigned to his fate.  Red turned his eyes away, unable to face even one tiny fragment of the Planet he failed.  Tifa’s face, the most haggard of them all, didn’t even acknowledge their existence.  Cid’s eyes opened, bright with unshed tears and whispered, “Escape.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Meteor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Cloud has died.  Sephiroth lives. </p>
<p>Meteor still falls.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The man waded through the sea of people that had evacuated to the Midgar slums.  For the first time in quite a while, he thought of his mother back in Mideel and wondered if she’d taken shelter yet.  He wished that he’d had called her back last week to tell her that he loved her.  He also thought of his exgirlfriend and wanted to apologize for, well, for everything.  It’s funny what a world crisis could do to a person.  Until this point, all he’d ever done was sell items at outrageous prices down here in the slums.  It was these same items he was now handing out to the evacuees.  Maybe it was a good thing he’d bought so many tranquilizers with the last shipment.  Everyone down here was calling him a hero, bringing some measure of peace to the sector.  It made him think of that flower girl.  She was always trying to bring “some measure of peace” to Midgar.  Three MPs sat around a radio, their helmets discarded and forgotten.<br/>
<br/>
<em>“Everyone, evacuate to beneath the plate,”</em> the voice said through the small speaker.  <em>“Just get your loved ones together and go.  The most important thing right now is to live.  Houses can be rebuilt; Midgar can be rebuilt.  Families can’t...”</em><br/>
<br/>
“Who’s this guy?” the man asked as he passed out the medicines to the MPs.<br/>
<br/>
“Reeve.  Used to be urban development, but he’s now taking on as president.”  The soldier shook his head.  “I hear that he was the only exec to protest the Sector seven plate drop.”<br/>
<br/>
“Sounds like he’s a good man,” the pharmacist commented.<br/>
<br/>
Another MP nodded.  “He is.  Could you imagine if he’d been president this whole time?”  He closed his eyes.  “Yeah, it’d be a whole different world.  But then again, that hunk of space junk would still be falling, wouldn’t it?”<br/>
<br/>
<em>“…There are people I am in contact with trying their best to stop Meteor with the ultimate Holy magic.  I cannot guarantee success, however, and your best bet will still be to take shelter beneath the plate…”</em><br/>
<br/>
“Well, you take care of yourselves, alright?”  The man waved and left the soldiers to their radio.  Maybe the world would have been a different place if this Reeve had been president, a better place.  Maybe it still might be if these “contacts” succeeded, but what was the chance of that?<br/>
<br/>
A deep rumble filled the slums and every head turned skyward.  The colossal steel plate vibrated within its bonds, cracked and fell upward into the blazing copper meteor.  Midgar wouldn’t die without a fight; long cyclones of flame battled between the titans, but the rock prevailed.  The pharmacist watched with a silent, drug induced peace as the flaming sky etched itself into his heart: one final memory for the Planet.  But if the Planet died, where would its soul go?  No one heard their prayers.<br/>
<br/>
In a final blaze of light, Midgar relinquished its sovereignty of the Planet to Meteor.  Rock and dust spewed from the impact and hurtled into the atmosphere.  The Planet’s crust shattered like a pane of glass, fissures rippling out to the ends of the world.  A deafening roar filled the ears of people as far out as North Corel as Lifestream rushed from the wounds.  The earthquakes could be felt the world over.<br/>
<br/>
***<br/>
<br/>
The people of Wutai glanced into torn paper windows at the proud samurai refusing to abandon their nation for a second time.  They merely sat and waited for this new threat from far off Midgar to destroy them.  One by one, the ones leaving said a prayer to their gods for safety and for their nation to once again grow from the people.  The city was merely a husk of its former glory with its toppled pagoda and the Da Chao cracked.  Only the mountains offered shelter to the evacuees, so to the mountains they went.  Earthquakes continued to plague the exodus, fine cracks turning to huge crevices that swallowed families whole.  One terrified call reached the ears of the refugees and all eyes turned to the ocean.  As though some great creature, an angry god perhaps, lowered his head to the water; the seas retreated from the coastline.  Miles and miles of now dry seabed became a graveyard with the writhing bodies of marine life.  The collective mind turned their focus higher to the wall of water now filtering the sunlight.<br/>
<br/>
The elderly samurai turned from the long dead war and watched stoically as the looming tsunami began to trickle down upon their houses like a cleansing rain.  Lord Godo closed the window and focused on the bedroom in which he stood.  The scattered shuriken and piles of materia glimmered like gems in the watery light.  With a sigh, he sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the stuffed moogle, remembering when he gave it to his daughter.  It was long ago, before the war.  Pride and sorrow were equal in his heart as the water came toppling down.<br/>
<br/>
***<br/>
<br/>
The actors of Nibelheim stepped from their stages and off their doorsteps to become only people once more as they listened to the rumbling and crashing of the mountains.  The fine web of cracks had already begun to seep Lifestream like a bleeding wound that slowly grew.  They stepped carefully around the ooze, peering at the great mountain.  Nibel smoked where the reactor had exploded earlier, a black smudge to add to the dark cloud obscuring the sun and turning day into deepest night.  Only the Lifestream light remained.  The people looked at each other, startled by the sickly appearance on familiar faces.<br/>
<br/>
The ground rumbled again, followed closely by the cracking and tumbling of the spires along the volcanic range.  The odd sound that called the colony from their houses passed, anxiety and curiosity passed as the reactor released its pressure.  Behind them, in the square, a child giggled: a child in a village without children.  Unseen people murmur in the darkness, unintelligible whispers breathed in their ears.  The actors all glanced around, disquieted by the haunting sounds.  A woman, blonde hair unruly in an unfelt wind, glanced through the people with ice blue eyes as though searching for someone.<br/>
<br/>
The ghostly strangers moved about silently in a haze of green light with a familiarity as though they lived here, two children chasing each other through the street.  It was peaceful to watch them move about their daily life, and the actors smiled as though they could accept this haunting.  Suddenly, the phantoms all snapped their attention to the front gates as though strangers had walked up.  An adult, surely the children’s mother, ushered them toward one of the houses and they all faded into the green twilight.<br/>
<br/>
The actors exchanged glances, puzzled by the serene haunting.  In this village, rumored to be the center of atrocities and sins against God, somehow the peaceful ghosts were definitely unexpected and so much more of a blessing when compared to the things happening to other places on the Planet.<br/>
<br/>
The phantoms returned from their houses, a different day than the previous- a moving journal.  They all collected around the entrance to the mountain’s path, wrapped up in an argument between the mayor and an absent party.  The mayor turned with a huff, upset with the results; the shopkeeper scurried forward, moving his camera about in askance with another invisible person.  He moved backward, took careful aim, and snapped the picture.  His thanks was rushed and his bow hurried, then he returned to his place along the line of villagers.  Their phantom eyes followed the invisible party plus one ghostly MP as they began their long trek up to the mountain’s peak and the reactor.<br/>
<br/>
Only the clocks ticked the time away, the sun hidden behind a black cloak of dust.  Once again, another day turned for the phantoms as they emerged from their houses to watch in apprehensive fear at an imagined figure standing, stalking down from the mansion.  A tense moment stretched through the actors collected in the square and amongst the ghosts.  An explosion from Mount Nibel shattered the stillness, sending Mako in a fount high into the air and spilling down the slopes like lava.  The bright chartreuse illumined the screaming spirits; phantom flames bursting from their bodies and from the buildings.  The blonde woman called out a soundless name, finally catching one of the actor’s eyes.  She clawed at him, at his blue eyes, demanding something that he could not understand.  Those screams filled the air, combined agony and frustration, as she dragged the man to the ground and deep into the crevice below.  His cries blended with the cacophony as the dying Planet tore his spirit from his body.  Those remaining turned their eyes back to the now threatening spirits.<br/>
<br/>
The children’s screams pierced the unnatural night as their flesh burned away in the cold flames.  Skeletal fingers locked around the actors’ ankles as the spirits grasped desperately for salvation, but instead dragged them further into hell.  One by one, the spirits gave in to their injuries and fell to the ground.  At first, the actors of Nibelheim turned to abandon the village, but hesitated as the ghosts didn’t fade.  This hesitation sealed their fate; the truth of Nibelheim revealed itself as the deepest pits of hell.  The phantoms, now disturbingly scarred beyond humanity, all spasmed in unison and began their sickening cries.  Bodies once dead picked themselves up from the ground like abandoned puppets now remembered and turn hollow eyes to the living.  Blood oozed from the children’s charred and cracked flesh; their blind eyes staring into the depths of a hell no child should ever know.  The blonde woman wept black tears from empty sockets, her eyes long burned away, and desperately cried out that silent name.</p>
<p>Numerical tattoos blaze liquid black on arms, shoulders, even faces; all willpower faded as heavy black cloaks enveloped them, hiding them from the world.  They stood as lifeless puppets until, as a unit, strings pulled, they turned malevolently towards the horrified actors.  A single name rose from the phantom mutterings, a chill in the air each time it cracked out: “Sephiroth”, they cried.  “Great Sephiroth.”  Disfigured hands reached out from within the black robes, emaciated and decomposing in death, and clawed at the remaining actors.  Slowly, they were dragged screaming to the ground and into the fissures bleeding Lifestream.  Their cries pierced death white through the darkness, echoing to nothing in the mountains.  Silence fell like a black shroud upon the actors’ frozen screams and the clawed hands reaching out of the Lifestream.<br/>
<br/>
And a child’s merry laugh chimed through the square.<br/>
<br/>
***<br/>
<br/>
The Highwind flashed its red and green lights over the lonely and shattered world.  No eyes turned to them, no one searched for hope from the heavens after hell itself plunged from the rafters.  The weight of their own sorrow bowed their heads in supplication.  Lifestream blinded them with its mako bright light a pale imitation of the sun, a viridian twilight.  This light clawed for the sky, twinkling on the airship’s aluminum sides.<br/>
<br/>
Within, the haggard remnants of Avalanche hunched over the conference table and tried not to remember triumphant days that had only just passed.  No one looked toward the head of the table where Cloud would stand haloed by the antiqued maps.  No one could bear that empty sight or those maps staring down with accusing eyes.  No one spoke into the heavy silence blanketing the room and choking their voices.  Reeve stood off to the side, his usually immaculate suit was rumpled and his tie hung loose from his shoulders.  Every so often he’d look up from his study of the carpets to glance at his compatriots.  He couldn’t hold their gaze for long, however, so returned to his scrutiny.  Red wandered up to the forlorn executive and nosed his hand.  Reeve glanced over into the beast’s sad smiling eye and turned back to the floor; he idly scratched behind the feline’s ear.  Cid sat in a heap against the wall, resting his elbows on knees pulled close.  He buried his head in his hands, pulling windblown strands of blonde hair from beneath his pilot’s goggles.  His flight jacket had been thrown next to an overflowing ashtray where an empty and crushed cigarette box had joined shortly thereafter.  Tifa clung weakly to Vincent, unmindful of the dried tear tracks streaking down her still dusty face.  Had it not been for the gunman’s supportive arm around her shoulders, she would have collapsed into a wrung out and crumpled pile.  He watched her with somber eyes, understanding but still distant.  He turned those eyes to Reeve, their flat stare extinguishing any remaining glimmer of hope.  The ex-Turk was no stranger to pure despair: a never-ending black night of regret and guilt devouring sanity, snuffing it like a small candle.<br/>
<br/>
The executive took a breath, almost choking on the thick miasma.  “Midgar has been destroyed.”  His voice seemed to echo through the small room, but now that he’d started he couldn’t take the words back.  “The entire population took shelter beneath the plate, but that turned to their downfall.”  Reeve swallowed the knot in his throat.  “I gave the order,” he breathed, the words barely audible.  “I killed them all.”<br/>
<br/>
Cid raised his head from his hands and sighed to relieve some of the stress – steam releasing from an overheating machine.  “What about the other cities?”<br/>
<br/>
“Junon is the only thing left on the coast,” Reeve ran his fingers through his hair, “including Wutai and Bone Village.”<br/>
<br/>
Red spoke up from his place beside the executive.  “And the Forgotten City, right?”<br/>
<br/>
Reeve nodded.  “And the Temple of the Ancients, or rather what’s left.”<br/>
<br/>
“Sounds like nothin’s left,” Cid commented.  He leaned back against the wall and rubbed his forehead.  “What’s still here?”<br/>
<br/>
“Fort Condor and the Gold Saucer have opened as shelters for the survivors.  SOLDIERs have gathered in Mideel.”<br/>
<br/>
“What happened to Cosmo Canyon?” Red asked, afraid to hear the answer.<br/>
<br/>
“The city stands, but the canyons are flooded.”  Reeve’s words held little reassurance to the beast, but his hand remained supportive on Red’s neck.<br/>
<br/>
Vincent watched Tifa for a moment, but she remained silent.  “And Nibelheim?” he asked.<br/>
<br/>
“Haunted.  No one’s left alive.”<br/>
<br/>
“Kalm Town and Marlene?”<br/>
<br/>
Reeve’s face paled at the mention of Barret’s daughter.  He shook his head.  “Same.  Besides Midgar, it was the closest town to Meteor.”<br/>
<br/>
“But what about Rocket Town?” the captain asked.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m sorry, Cid.  It’s abandoned.  Everyone there has either left for the refugee camps or died.”<br/>
<br/>
“God damn it,” the pilot cursed as he shoved his last broken cigarette into his mouth.<br/>
<br/>
Red leaned close to Reeve’s leg and rested his head against the wrinkled navy fabric.  After a moment, he gathered the courage to ask the question hovering on everyone’s mind: “Is Sephiroth…?”<br/>
<br/>
For the first time, Avalanche turned their eyes to Cloud’s empty position and the map posted beyond.  The very highest point drawn on the parchment glared at them like an ugly eye.  Reeve didn’t bother turning to the beast.  “Still in Crater.  He hasn’t moved.”  At that moment, Red was terribly thankful for the executive’s calming hand that never left his shoulder.  Reeve was terribly thankful that Red had remained at his side and supported him.  Cid was terribly thankful that he’d saved this cigarette for emergencies.  The pilot took a long drag on the tobacco; crackling, burning paper was the only sound in the room as they studied the map.<br/>
<br/>
Tifa suddenly pushed away from Vincent with a wordless scream and fell to her knees, clutching and shaking her head.  She pulled at her hair and cried out unintelligible denials and protestations, calling out for Cloud and groping around in a blind panic.  Her fingers stretched and reached then brushed against Vincent’s cloak to which she clung and returned to a hiccupping silence.  The gunman kneeled down and wrapped her up in the crimson expanse and began murmuring words to settle and comfort the woman.<br/>
<br/>
Cid’s hand had returned to rubbing his forehead and the cigarette butt remained between his lips.  Again, he sighed, low and raspy.  “So what now?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>heavily inspired by the Phantoms in Spirits Within</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Lifestream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>They scatter to the corners of the world, to be with loved ones or to be alone.  Mostly alone.  They attempt to clear up unfinished business as the Planet dies.</p>
<p>Sephiroth is still at the bottom of the Crater.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It felt like an eternity since the Highwind had touched down and let everyone off.  Either on foot or by chocobo, they'd all gone their separate directions - ashes to the wind.  Cid alone remained on the airship when it eased off the ground just outside of Gongaga.  The already destroyed city laid in ruins at the bottom of a bowl where the Mako drilling had left empty space.  The Impact was too much for the already weakened earth to support itself any longer.  Zack's hometown was no more.<br/><br/>It took Red several mako-twilit hours skirting the new coastline before he found a way to cross the newly made inlets.  He'd been lucky to find the scrap of plywood licking gently at the jungle foliage.  Until recently, it'd been someone's wall.  Carefully, the beast climbed onto the floral-printed debris and cast off from the tangled roots.  It was a slow, dark journey across what was once red desert.  Red spent much of the time staring down into the luminescent depths and at the footpaths far below.  So many animals littered the water, poisoned by the toxic lifestream; it made the canyon's guardian sick with guilt.  He'd promised that he'd protect the Planet like his father before, but he failed.<br/><br/>The tiny vessel skidded against a stairway cut directly into the side of the canyon.  Red nearly drowned himself as he struggled onto the soaked stones.  The climb was depressingly short before he'd passed through the gates announcing Cosmo Canyon.  Here, he was no longer the Professor's specimen Red XIII but instead Nanaki, son of the warrior Seto.  Son of the brave soul who'd stood alone against the entire Gi tribe as they attempted to cross into the canyon.  Singlehandedly he'd fought them back, even as his limbs stiffened with their poison.  His lungs burned as they fought to take air into their petrified hollows.  His eyes grew fuzzy then blind as his oxygen-starved brain succumbed to the wicked arrows prickling through his blood-soaked mane.  Finally, as the world grew dark, Seto had promised to protect this canyon until long after his petrified body turned to dust.  This was the legacy Nanaki promised to live up to, and failed.  It felt as if his own heart had turned to stone, every beat pained him so deeply.  There was a part of him that wished that he'd been the one to die down there in the Crater, a part that wanted to be buried so unceremoniously beneath the earth.  For one selfish moment, he dreamed that it was he who'd died instead of Cloud, that it was Cloud who was returning to his home a failure.<br/><br/>But that thought stung like a burr in his already aching heart.<br/><br/>It had already happened.  And Nanaki was still alive with his shame.<br/><br/>He heaved a tremendous sigh and trudged further into the town, his head hanging low and his single good eye staring at his paws as they stirred the red dust with every heavy step.  It was those feet that took him directly to his place of comforting, up two steps to the low mesa in the center of the town's square.  Something was wrong and Nanaki knew it even before he raised his golden eye.  The Cosmo Candle had been extinguished.  There was a moment where he just stood there before the tremendous sickening realization tumbled down upon him.  With hackles raised, a sharp gasp, and a shaking breath; he backed away from the scattered ashes.  Even in the darkest times, the bright burning of the Candle had given him hope.  It was to the Candle that his mind had wandered on that night before they descended into Crater.  It was the Candle that calmed and reassured him when his grandfather passed away.  If nothing changed even though the world was stood on its head, the Candle was eternal.  Now eternally dark.<br/><br/>There was a cry building in his throat that threatened to consume him.  Before he could succumb to its dark howling, the already unstable Planet shook in its violent death throes.  Sand and stone exploded from the canyon in a rusty smoke.  Buildings so permanent and sure in his youth toppled down like cards.  That cry burst forth in a feral yell, deafening the sounds of his friends and family as they crashed to the blood red stones below.  The heavens threw a chartreuse net the black skies, casting crimson ghosts against Nanaki's closed eye.  Tears poured down against the electric storm: tears for his family, his town, but most of all for this failure.  He could not protect this town.<br/><br/>In a numb silence, Nanaki drifted like a fiery ghost through the ruins.  He eventually stopped looking for survivors, having found none alive.  Even the Planet was strangely silent as though it, too, was already dead.  Maybe it was and this was all just a passing dream.  Elder Bugah and Hargo weren't there like broken dolls beneath what was once a wall.  His grandfather's observatory wasn't a heap of rubble and broken glass.  The world wasn't really broken.  Those silent and heavy feet once again took him down deep beneath the dead village.  Deep, deep below, the sulfuric scent of raw mako - lots of it - reached his sensitive nose and cleared his mind of the roaring silence.  The moon had been shining the last time he'd exited these caves, the bright silver light spilling over his father's petrified body like a message from the heavens.  Tonight, the sickly green light mocked the memory from so long ago.  Nanaki climbed up the side of the cliff to where Seto stood like a statue.  Every line etched in the stone was the very symbol of bravery and protection.  Shame cut deep.  "I -" he began, but choked on that all-consuming cry.  His voice wavered, "I have failed you, Father."  He didn't know which was more painful: "failed" or "Father".  "You died for nothing.  I wasn't strong enough to continue.  I am not worthy to be called the 'Son of Seto'."  Bitter tears drew bright lines against his furry cheeks.  "How do you save a world already lost?"  That howl tore free, blotting out his mind in pure animal rage and all too human guilt.  Nanaki's voice filled the canyon even as the ground opened up beneath them.<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>The Highwind landed in a spray of fine muddy mist just outside Rocket Town.  The once dry grassland was covered in shallow waters transforming it into a marsh almost overnight.  The airship's gleaming aluminum body once shone like a beacon in the sunlight, but now, rather than reflecting impossibly blue skies, it was draped in darkness from a black canvas ceiling.  A sickly absinthe glow was the only remaining light, flickering through the cloudy ankle deep water.  Olive shadows shifted in a myriad of personalities.<br/><br/>Three metal fingers shone dimly in the darkness and fog - the joints and tendons bereft of flesh - reaching to grasp the ever unattainable heavens.  They were all that remained of Rocket Town's namesake.  Now, the once prosperous town was a mere shadow of itself, torn apart by looters and desperate families abandoning their home for nearby shelters.<br/><br/>Cid's slate blue eyes took in the damage the only way the Captain could: by noting absolutely everything.  Every broken window, every misplaced brick, the broken fence, the trees and shrubs torn up by their roots.  The image blasted like a discordant note until it was too much to take in any longer.  There should've been a wall here, and a fence and a gate.  The door would've been here, wide open, with Shera standing just inside.  A cup of her tea, Cid's best kept secret, would be sitting on the table just steaming away.  Just as he reached out for the porcelain cup, the dream dissolved into a chartreuse haze.<br/><br/>The Captain's comfortable smile melted away as he faced the ruin that was his home.  His memory still painted that beautiful sunlit image of Shera seated across the table over the harsh black reality.  There was nothing left alive here, not after everyone abandoned the town.  That lit a small flame of hope within Cid's heart.  Maybe she wasn't dead, after all.  There was no proof that could affirm or deny the possibility, and that idea made that hope grow stronger.  Kneeling down into the shallow water, he began shifting through the rubble that had once been his kitchen counter and wall.  At first there was nothing except for the thump thump rhythm that masked the sound of shifting rubble, that was so loud that it couldn't possibly be his own heartbeat.  The lingering, pessimistic voice whispered at the back of his mind saying that she was dead, that she'd been dead this whole time and he was alone.  Cid refused to listen and redoubled his efforts to clear the kitchen.  <br/><br/>It wasn't long before his efforts were rewarded.  A single, drowned paper fluttered its white corner in the light breeze.  Carefully, oh so carefully, the pilot lifted the delicate paper from the water and peeled the wet page open.  There was only one line scrawled out in a hasty hand; the pencil was almost entirely washed away.  "No..." he murmured through clenched teeth as he read the message.  "No, please..."<br/><br/>'To Midgar for supplies.  Be back soon.  ~S'<br/><br/>All he had to read were the first two words.  "To Midgar" she'd said.  The other five words didn't matter at that point.  Just the name of that city was enough to take the strength from his legs.  There he sat with the water creeping unnoticed up his pants as he read and reread the last message from Shera.  Those words ceased to be letters on a page and became her voice whispering in his ear until his maimed heart wrung out one mournful cry through the dead silence.  For all his yelling and curses, for all the things he said about her, Cid loved Shera.  His strength tumbled down like the matchstick houses surrounding him.  Guilt and sorrow came up swiftly in the darkness; his thoughts reminding him that he never could say those three little words.  He pressed that little paper note to his chest as though embracing her as he should have so many times before.  The Captain remained there, rocking back and forth in the muck, until exhaustion stole over him and threw him into a restless sleep.<br/><br/>Innumerable hours passed with the sun hidden behind black skies when Cid woke, the cold and wet forgotten by his burning rage.  His precious letter was tucked into his inner jacket pocket - close to his heart - when he stormed out of the ruin of a house and onto the road.  The pilot tripped over the rubble so many times, each one making him angrier than the last, until finally he took the stone and pitched it into the sky.  "Damn it!"  Another rock flew into the heavens.  "GOD!" he challenged.  "Where are ya?!  You killed her, didn't ya?"  The upward rain of rocks continued.  "Turned yer damned back on us, that's what ya did!  Left us to... to THIS!"  He spat on the ground and turned his stormy eyes to the void.  Silence was his only answer.  The anger drained away almost as swiftly as it had come.  "No answer," he scoffed, unsurprised.  He turned back to his town.  No, this wasn't his town.  That one was alive, filled with people and productivity and Shera.  This one was a shell.  Cid's heart ached like a bruise as he thought about what was lost.  His hand found its way to the note in his pocket.  His thumb caressed the frayed paper gently and thoughtfully.<br/><br/>Seemingly in response to the pilot's blasphemy, the rocks threw Cid into the air where he arced and tumbled back to the ground like a doll.  Cracks splinter from already brilliant green fissures in a spider's web, like a rock through a pane of glass.  The tremor passed quickly, leaving the pilot there smoothing a crumpled paper as though soothing mousy brown hair and tear filled eyes.  With a weary sigh, he turned to his airship to leave this ghost town.  Shifting soil against the already weakened earth failed against the man's weight and dissolved like sand in an hourglass.  The once solid ground turned to liquid beneath his feet and dragged him helplessly into the chasm growing like mouth opening to swallow him whole.  The pilot slid into that great maw, the dark sky devoid of any tiny lights blotted out his vision.  The note slips away from his fingers and flutters away despite his efforts to grasp it.  "Shera," he whispered into the darkness, "did you get to see the stars?"<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>Vincent spent hours walking along this fissure in the ground.  A bubble of Lifestream spilled over the lip and nearly onto his boots.  Ghostly hands reached out from the ooze, but none touched the man.  None wanted to.  They could feel the darkness in his mind, the thoughts, the musings of death and oblivion.  His red eyes fixed themselves firmly on the ground in front of him; the metal claw at his side dragged him down - a reminder of who he was and who lived inside of him.  The gunman stopped to gaze over the ruin of the landscape he once knew so well.  No remorse touched his heart over the Planet's death throes, just the heavy burden of guilt for sins committed years ago.  This was merely another line on the long list of  crimes against humanity.  <br/><br/>That thought brought a grim half-smile to Vincent's lips.  Only now, at the end of all things, did the great misanthrope finally care about the rest of the world?  Not really, but it struck Vincent as ironic and he chuckled, dry and empty, only to have the sound carried by the wind across the boiling crevice and into the hazy twilight.  He silenced, sobered by how much Lucretia would hate his moping and whining.<br/><br/>Near the lip of the crevice, a form struggled to reach the surface, first a slender arm luminescent with mako green then a face.  Her brown hair hung wetly in her face and over her askew glasses.  Vincent knew her, knew every detail of Lucretia's face; and that face was struggling to stay above the surface.  Diving forward, he stretched across the Lifestream lake, his claw sunk deep into the earth and his fingers just inches from the luminescent specter.  The woman splashed around feebly, seemingly exhausted from her struggle against death, but she finally brushed against Vincent's fingertips.  She smiled - slow, sad, but somehow at peace - and disappeared beneath the chartreuse waves.  Unthinking in his brief glimpse at forgiveness, the gunman thrust his hand into the Lifestream to try and catch her.  In the moment of contact, he began to separate spirit from body.  Sheer animal instinct made him pull his hand back though he would have gladly dove in after her.<br/><br/>Vincent sat back away from the edge, collecting himself.  He had just seen his angel reach to him from the Lifestream.  Had she refused to dissolve in death just to see him once again?  Did she forgive him?  As he sat there, he realized that a terrible burden had been taken from his shoulders.  The idea that she had forgiven him after all these years no longer sounded improbable, no, in fact, he smiled genuinely for the first time in over thirty years.  Only now, at the end of the world, Vincent could laugh for the sheer feeling that he was alive.  And forgiven.  He couldn't help but laugh out loud at the thought, a wish finally granted.  Surely, if any of the others saw him, they would think him finally mad.<br/><br/>But they were dead, weren't they?  Vincent sat back on the ground now sober, overlooking the Lifestream, wondering if this was all in vain.  If there was still time, he would find Tifa and console her.  If there was still time, he'd show her that there could be forgiveness for being the survivor.  But there wasn't time and this absolution came just for him to notice and appreciate before the whole world dissipated into nothing.<br/><br/>A large bubble burst in the viscous ooze, larger than the rest that had been gently simmering all day.  Vincent's head jerked up out of his musings at the sound.  An arm the color of rotting meat reached out from the mako lake, skin like sandpaper and ice pick claws that the gunman knew so well.  He stared in disbelief as Chaos pulled itself out of the Lifestream.  It screamed with all the rage and hate that Vincent had ever felt, embodying the very sins he had just shed.  He whipped out Quicksilver, the three shots flying straight past the darting demon.  It was all he could do to lash out viciously with his claw.  Chaos grinned, fangs dripping foam, and snatched the metal arm mid-swing.  Its berserk strength tossed Vincent across the field like nothing, the gunman crashing into some earthquake debris.  He pulled himself to his knees, shaking the incredible blow from his head, never seeing the demon fly forward.  It grabbed him by his hair and lifted him into the air.  Chaos flew straight up for a little while, the gunman held captive by his long hair, hissed a mirthful laugh, and dropped him straight down.  Years of combat took over and Vincent fell into a practiced roll, placing him firmly on his feet as the doppelganger dove forward.  His gun had dropped somewhere in the first blow, so he readied the bronze weapon attached to his arm.  The claws caught Chaos between his ribs, gashing deep and long as he flew past.<br/><br/>The demon's momentum took him past Vincent and the wide turn it had to make gave him enough time to collect his thoughts.  As it came past once again, he leaped onto the demon's back and smashed his elbow into the tender joint of wing to back.  Now furious, Chaos screamed and spiraled, dumping Vincent to the dirt.  It got back to its feet and took off running at the man, slashing wildly at any point he could reach.  <br/><br/>The gunman stumbled back, bloodied and torn, unlatched his heavy cloak and rearranged the cloth holding his thick hair back.  Chaos growled and reached for the now lame wing.  The demon was the first to break forward, claws bared.  Just as the daggers neared their mark, Vincent dodged to one side and took the gash in the shoulder instead.  Falling forward, the gunman gouged the point of his reinforced boot deep into Chaos's diaphragm.  He came around with his bronze claw in a heavy blow to the back of its head.  Though it was enough to knock a man senseless, the demon managed to grab his free hand.  The sandpapery skin tore the bare flesh of Vincent's right wrist, leaving it dripping blood.  The gunman broke away, breathing heavily and peering through the loose folds of cloth that he hadn't tied properly and now couldn't tie at all.  Chaos, on the other hand, leaped to its feet and once again rushed Vincent.  Seeing it coming this time, the gunman braced himself and caught the demon in the stomach with the sharp metal claw.  He attempted to catch Chaos's flailing arms, but missed miserably with his injured wrist.  Instead, the demon tore across Vincent's face with his own claws, one handful after the other, grabbed his shirt and flung him across the field.  The man skidded across the rocks in a daze and laid there in a heap on the flat of his back.  <br/><br/>Vincent opened the one eye not filled with blood and dirt and saw Quicksilver glittering there in the chartreuse twilight.  Chaos was coming with all the rage and bloodlust that hatred could muster, ready to finish him.  The gunman remained there, waiting, then kicked both reinforced boots into the demon's chin, grabbed the gun, and found his footing in one trained move.  It took its turn in the dirt with the gunman pressing one metal plated boot into its chest.  One well placed shot landed directly between glaring red eyes.<br/><br/>Chaos screamed in fury and pain, then laid still.  Its body lost substance, once more a construct of dust and Lifestream, and faded like a bad dream.  Vincent crashed to his knees then fell forward to his hands in exhaustion.  His raven hair fell loose around his face when the strip of crimson cloth finally gave up and fell in a puddle at his fingertips.  He ached all over, in places that Chaos hadn't reached and in the places it had.  Suddenly weak, he fell to the ground and shut his eyes against the spinning horizon.  He reached to his stomach and felt blood seeping through unmarred cloth.  "Lucretia, I have atoned," he whispered into the now hazy twilight.  "He is dead and now... I am free."  Heavy lids lowered over now empty eyes staring into the heart of the Lifestream.<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>Reeve heard the radio static in his headset followed shortly after by a voice.  The MP speaking was stationed at the top of the Junon elevator.  It still displayed Rufus' red banners - now turned the color of old blood in the Mako twilight.  "The next ship's approaching, sir," he said in crisp military tones.  Even though the soldier couldn't see him, the new President nodded and stepped out into the middle of the street.  The remaining hundred plus citizens were lined up behind the concrete barricades that stretched across the main road.  At least half of those were off-duty soldiers themselves, and all were loyal to ShinRa.  Nevertheless, Reeve had several MPs armed and ready.<br/><br/>"Alright, I've just been notified that the next transport will be here in fifteen minutes," Reeve called into the crowd.  Their hushed voices fell away to hear what the President had to say.  "Be sure you have all of your belongings and double check that all of your family is accounted for.  You will be staying at the Gold Saucer until a more permanent residence can be secured.  Remember that even in these dark times, you are fortunate.  Unlike many of the other cities, you were able to gather important possessions and your family.  But above all, you are alive, and one day we will see the sun rise again."  <br/><br/>The President nodded to one of the guards and stepped out into the throng.  Each family had separated off like oil in water, forming little huddles in the lime-tinged light.  He stopped for a moment at one circle, recognizing the father.  Reeve couldn't place his name, but his face reminded him of one day at ShinRa HQ, in the rec room, staring at the vending machine that had just stolen his last gil.  "Is everything alright here?" the President asked.  He couldn't help but notice the two little girls clinging to their father.  The elder just stared at him with a wary look, but the younger managed to squeak out a watery smile.  <br/><br/>The off-duty MP dislodged his hand long enough to salute.  "Everything's fine, Mr. President.  Everyone's here."<br/><br/>"And that's all that matters now."  Reeve started to turn away after the father nodded in agreement, but paused.  A half grin crept out as he mentioned over his shoulder, "We got that vending machine working, though."  The man looked stunned for a moment, then thought of that day in the rec room.<br/><br/>Reeve, on the other hand, remembered that it was his order that killed a city and he had no right to be joking about a mere vending machine.  He continued his trek through the milling and impatient crowd, thinking about those who had died.  These dark, accusing thoughts followed him to the end of the crowd, to the group of children whose parents had been under the Plate when Meteor fell.  He didn't have to see their condemning looks to know their feelings.  He didn't have to hear the poisonous whispers that stopped just before he approached.  Reeve did a good enough job at self-damnation to make these merely icing on the cake.<br/><br/>The President cleared his throat as he approached the orphans, defenseless against their sharp glares.  "Do you have everything?"<br/><br/>"What do you think?" one boy said, indignant.<br/><br/>"Clothing?  Valuables?" Reeve offered.<br/><br/>"I seem to be missing something," a girl sneered.  "I can't find my mom.  Have you seen her, mister?"<br/><br/>Reeve bit off the words that he was about to say and closed his mouth with a soft click.  Who was he fooling, he asked himself.  He had just started to leave and return to the barricade when a small fluff of dandelion hair and a blue jumper attached herself to his leg.  The president glanced down at the child, and into her dusty face.  Tears had left trails in the grime and her blue eyes were drowning.  "Please, Papa, just one more time," she said as she buried her face in his jacket, never mind that he wasn't her Papa.  She couldn't be more than six, and somehow this drove guilt deeper into Reeve's heart than the hateful words from the older children.  He picked her up and held her for a little while, the world forgotten, as she clung to his neck and he stroked the fine platinum pigtails.  The child cried once, quietly, and then released him.  The president set her down and smiled reassuringly at her.  She giggled a little and reached up to brush his face, a little mark of wet he hadn't noticed fall from his eye.  With a renewed hope in the future, he ruffled the girl's hair and walked back to the barricade.<br/><br/>"Mr. President, sir, the ship has arrived," came the garbled voice through his headset once again.  He was able to take a couple running steps forward before the ground lurched in an aftershock.  There had been several through the day, but this was the worst.  Reeve stumbled and fell to the ground, but rolled to his feet an instant later.  He braced himself against the rolling earth.<br/><br/>"Everyone!  Stay calm!  The tremor will pass in a moment!"  This time, Reeve's words were swallowed in the din of human panic.  "Please!  Everyone!  Stay away from the water!  Remember, Mako is leaking and has poisoned the area," he said to deaf ears.  It was all he could do to watch families cluster together and scream.  First seconds, then minutes passed, and finally the quake passed.  "Is everyone alright?"  Reeve found that sobbing was easier to speak over than screams.  Besides shaken nerves, everyone seemed to be together and in one piece.  There were a few "affirmatives" piping up along the road and a couple "we're alrights" joined.<br/><br/>Then the groaning began.  It wasn't from human mouths, but from beneath their feet.  Everyone looked about at the street in confusion, but it was only Reeve who checked on the orphans.  A fissure a hand's breadth chiseled across the road like forking lightning.  There was a grinding and groaning as rock struggled to pull reinforced steel cables out from concrete.  There were screams in a haunting chorus from the children's mouths.  And there was Reeve, shucking off his jacket and tie as he raced forward.  Dress shoes skidded on the pavement as he dove forward, catching a snapped steel bar with one hand and reaching out over the widening crevice with the other.<br/><br/>"Don't worry.  I've got you."  Reeve stretched his fingers until the tendons screamed in agony, but even that wasn't close enough.  He whipped off his belt and looped it around the bar, slid his hand down to the end, and reached out again.  For a moment, he was struck with something he had said what felt like a lifetime ago, as Cait Sith, in the Gold Saucer.  "You don't get paid. You don't get praised. Yet, you still risk your lives and continue on your journey. Seeing that makes me...  It just makes me think about my life."<br/><br/>But rather than mature eyes watching him, these were the eyes of children placing all of their trust in the man who killed their parents.  Reeve thrust his hand out one more time, catching the small hand of a child - the one who called him Papa.  Strength found its way into the President as he hauled up first the girl, then the boy who had been mocking him.  He was reaching for the third when he felt a jolt on his anchor.  The rough edge of the cable had worn down the fine leather of his belt.  One tear, a slip, and finally the leather snapped.  Reeve lost his balance and fell over the edge and onto the sliding rock.  Two pairs of eyes followed him down from higher, unable to save him.  He could feel the ground crumble beneath his dress shoes, then finally dissolve.<br/><br/>Reeve fell for a moment that stretched from horizon to horizon, falling next to the children he had tried to save.  They were the hope of the future.  They were supposed to see the sun rise again.  But in their eyes will only shine this artificial twilight.<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>Had Tifa been herself, she would have first wondered why her feet had taken her to Mideel.  She would have taken a quick look around and known that this had become the SOLDIER refuge, but more importantly, this was where she found Cloud the last time he had been lost to the Lifestream.  Tifa was not herself, though, and besides, lightning never strikes twice.  Instead, she wandered in a mute daze around the tents and men huddled around their small fires.  She was barely hanging on to a half remembered dream of finding someone, someone terribly important to her that she somehow lost.  <br/><br/>One SOLDIER made to stand and help her.  "Lady, is there something we can help you with?"  His voice was honest, not taking in her ragged and torn miniskirt but instead noticing the hopeless and lost look on her face.  It was the haggard strands of hair and the dark circles that got the Second Classer's attention, the redness of her eyes alone told her story.  <br/><br/>He was half risen when his buddy reached out and grasped his wrist.  "Listen, man.  Don't.  She's had enough heartbreak, she doesn't need you to meddle."  The younger Second Classer watched as Tifa passed in a haze, having not even noticed his approach.<br/><br/>"What can do that to a person?"<br/><br/>The elder SOLDIER sighed.  "The end of the world, man.  Someone she loved died.  See, I remember her, back in Midgar, following that First Class kid.  You know, the blonde one."<br/><br/>"Right.  That guy."<br/><br/>Their voices faded as Tifa stumbled out to the edge of the Lifestream, watching unseeing as waves broke upon the shore.  Her thoughts were far away, playing out the ghosts of the past, watching herself and Cloud emerge from this very lake, coughing and sputtering, but as though it was happening to someone wholly different, like a mildly interesting movie.  She stood there for a moment, then turned away.  It was there, growing on the banks, a single yellow flower winking in the livid absinthe light and utter darkness.  She took a step towards it, then another.  Tifa was breathing heavily through her chapped and bleeding lips, but her thoughts were back in Seventh Heaven when Cloud had given her that flower.  In her daze, she stumbled over her own feet, face down in the dirt.  The flower was still there.  She reached for it, fingertips just barely out of reach, but still she reached.  That flower was the only thing in the world; no more pain, no more death, no more memory.  All would be better if she could just reach it.  But she couldn't reach, no matter how hard she tried.<br/><br/>A hand reached out and grasped Tifa's wrist: a woman's hand.  For a second, she remained there confused, staring at the gold bangle around the woman's wrist.  "It's alright, Tifa," the stranger said, her voice familiar.  "Everything's ok now.  I'll show you."<br/><br/>Tifa looked up toward the other woman whose voice was so familiar, her dark eyes meeting clear green.  She had knelt down in the dirt next to her and the hem of her pink dress was in a puddle.  Aerith gave Tifa's wrist a little bit of a tug and smiled reassuringly.  Although they had been rivals for Cloud's affections, and Aerith often seemed to be in the lead, Tifa sniffed once and dissolved into tears she had thought run dry.  The older girl was only just able to keep her balance as Tifa fell against her and sobbed into her shoulder.<br/><br/>Aerith waited until Tifa's sobs quieted before giving her a quick squeeze then a gentle rap on her head.  "You remind me of Cloud," she said with a giggle.  Tifa looked up in shock, her eyes still liquid and wavering.  "I told you everything's alright.  Now will you follow me?"  Aerith got a better grip on her hand and helped her to her feet.  They skirted the Lifestream lake and went around to the far side; this time none of the SOLDIERs even looked up.  Not once did Tifa wonder why Aerith had come for her, or how she could be there when she was dead.  In this world of twilight shadows and absinthe mist, in a world where heroes die, little things like ghosts of friends didn't trouble her much.  Aerith was talking again, "You two are really alike, you know?  You're all he's been able to talk about for days."  She laughed as she dodged some creepers.  They were pretty far into the jungle by now; the SOLDIERs' campfires lost in the trees, and the trail they'd been following had long since run out and forced Aerith into concentrated silence.  Tifa was left to her guilt and sorrow saturated thoughts that would inevitably cycle back into memories of Crater, darkness, and death.<br/><br/>Quite a while passed as Aerith led Tifa further into the jungle, lit only by the Lifestream shining through fissures in the ground and lightning that was steadily approaching.  The girl in pink held up her hand and peeked through the underbrush, then nodded to herself.  "He loved you best, no matter what," she said, avoiding Tifa's eyes, then turned and held the leaves back and gestured for her to enter.<br/><br/>There were two dimly lit figures across the clearing, Tifa could tell they were male, one had his arm around the smaller's shoulders and was giving him a vigorous noogie.  Their shouts filled the hollow; it was a wonder that the girls hadn't heard them from far off.<br/><br/>"Come on, man!  Get off of me," the smaller one was saying.<br/><br/>The other was laughing, "I haven't seen you in ages!  Besides, you were hitting on my girlfriend.  I gotta pay you back for that."<br/><br/>Aerith had followed Tifa into the clearing and was laughing along with them.  "How about you give him a moment, Zack.  I'm sure he'd like to talk to her alone"  The younger woman had been watching the two with little to no interest, offended that they could be having such a good time when Cloud was dead; shouldn't the whole world mourn him?  Aerith and the larger man, Zack, moved away and left them there in the clearing.  Tifa had built a wall of her sorrow and a great fissure of her guilt of which the smaller man was on the far side.<br/><br/>"Tifa," he started, disbelieving, and rushed to gather her up in his arms.  He held her there for only a moment before he had to step back from her clammy reception.  "Tifa, look at me, please."  There was a note of urgency to his voice as he cupped her chin and turned her despondent face to his.<br/><br/>Lightning flashed above, the storm having finally reached the clearing.  Clean white light illumined his face and Tifa was able to see two clear Mako-blue eyes and unkempt blonde spikes.  She took a couple steps back, eyes wide with disbelief.  There was Cloud, smile spreading across his face as he saw recognition dawn in her eyes.  Tifa took a couple shaky breaths and tried to speak; the only thing that came out was a choking sob.  "It's good to see you again, too," Cloud said as he stood there, a very beacon of strength.  The woman moved to embrace him once again as the world misted and she could no longer see.<br/><br/>The first raindrops fell onto Tifa's outstretched hand and into her vacantly staring eyes.  Mideel's campfires flickered fitfully on the lifeless body laying in a crumpled heap, reaching for a single wilting yellow flower.<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>The gale swirling around Crater was almost too much for Sephiroth to bear.  The sheer energy that coursed through his body was in and of itself more than he had hoped for, but the knowledge that came with absorbing the Lifestream made the young god smile savagely at the world.  "You see, Mother!  We've done it!"  His laughter echoed over the screaming winds.  Those insects could never have hoped to destroy him, not with their pitiful weapons.  He floated there at the center of the maelstrom, reveling at his sweet victory.  Cloud may have defeated him once, long ago, but that was before Mother had stepped in and lent her aid for their cause.  Now those buzzing flies had been swatted away and the Planet would soon know this god's vengeance.<br/><br/>One by one, the souls swirled around in the Lifestream and came through into his mind.  They all told their stories, down to the instant that they died.  More and more they came, staring at that magnificent Meteor the god had summoned.  At least half of them had come from Midgar, and those were the sweetest ones.  Some of them were brave souls, sheltering loved ones with their own bodies; while others were cowards, hiding or crying or wetting themselves like babies.  Those weak ones left a bad taste in Sephiroth's mouth whenever they came.  <br/><br/>After several thousand souls, they began to blur together and the god ceased to pay attention to them.  Instead he turned to the bodies littering the bottom of the crater.  With a gesture, he raised them to his level.  The first one he addressed was Barret, frozen solid.  "Mr. Wallace.  You were such a fool, leaving your daughter behind.  Thought to protect her, hmm?"  The body didn't respond.  "Well, you failed.  She's dead now and so are you."  With a sneer, Sephiroth threw the body far out of his sight.  He turned to the stuffed cat creature.  "Oh, Reeve.  You I remember.  What would the Head of Urban Development be doing, playing with dolls and pretending at being some great hero.  Useless, Mr. Cat.  I'm sure even Cloud would agree with me," he said and threw the doll away.  "Ah, and the mayor's daughter, Miss Kisaragi.  You resented me for destroying Wutai, didn't you?  That was before you were born, little girl, a world you only dreamed about.  You wasted your life for a place that never existed.  Thank me for extinguishing that false dream and showing you reality."  Then Yuffie, too, was tossed aside.<br/><br/>Sephiroth descended from the center of the maelstrom to where the battle took place just days before.  He retraced the battlegrounds, shadowing the rough booted footprints where Cloud had left his last mark.  There it was, one two three, where he dove to protect that girl from Nibelheim at the sacrifice of his own life.  If there was any regret the god had, it was that Cloud's body had been swept away in the Lifestream's currents.  For a while he stood at the crevice the body had fallen into.  "Who did you think you were to challenge me?  Once you got lucky, but once alone.  Just masquerading as a SOLDIER, using that sword you stole, wouldn't make you strong enough to defeat me.  No, you truly were the failure."  The god laughed a little at Cloud's expense then turned to leave.<br/><br/>The heart of the maelstrom had formed quite the concentration of Mako energy without Sephiroth to absorb it.  He honestly looked forward to cracking it open and flew directly into the vivid light.  The current was once again established and that raw power filled his body until it felt it would burst.  The souls came quickly now, one flash of a life after another like flipping the pages in a book caught in this unbearable wind.  He was drunk on his own power, blinded by his own arrogance, and so never noticed the few souls collecting off to one side until they addressed him.<br/><br/>"Sephiroth!"  The voice rang clarion through the winds, a challenge.  The god ignored it.  Another, female, called out.  "Sephiroth!"  Again, he ignored it.  A third voice: "Sephiroth!"  Another six chimed in.  "Sephiroth!" they shouted in chorus.   Finally, he turned, irritated.<br/><br/>Several figures floated just outside of the current that surrounded the god, glowing chartreuse from the Lifestream.  At its head was Cloud and Tifa at his side.  Just next to them were Zack and Aerith, then Barret holding Marlene and they were surrounded by Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie.  Reeve wasn't far behind, cradling the discarded Cait doll in one arm.  Cid and Nanaki stood nearby, the pilot taking a drag on his cigarette and cradling his spear.  Yuffie remained next to Godo, idly caressing her shuriken.  Aside, Vincent held Lucretia, protecting her from her own son's madness.  One by one, the souls diverted from their course and collected behind Cloud, every one of them directly wronged by the mad god.  "Sephiroth!" Cloud shouted, once again.<br/><br/>The god began laughing, tears of mirth streaming down his face.  "You!  Once again, you challenge me!  Such a fool to defy your destiny."  He suddenly sobered.  "I killed you all!  You belong to me now!"<br/><br/>Cloud took the sword from where it rested against his shoulder and idly fingered the blade as though testing the phantom edge's sharpness.  "So we do."  His veiled eyes snapped up, blue as the depths of a flame, and he took a flying leap at the god.  At contact, the ghostly figure vanished like all of the other souls.  But then, the memories came:<br/><br/><em>Bullied by the village kids, unrequited love, staring at a hero, a night beneath the stars at the well, leaving home, denied SOLDIER.  Nibelheim, burning.  An anger even hotter.  Five years with Hojo, the shame of being the first clone, the failed clone.  Losing memories, chasing the black caped man.  Right down to falling, dyiing, into the Lifestream.</em><br/><br/>The god staggered, the memory too clear and edged with so much hatred.  It was like a poison.  Motion caught his eye and Tifa came flying at him with a cry, fist first, then vanished.<br/><br/><em>Lonliness at the death of her mother, unconscious for five days, Cloud leaving to join SOLDIER, two years of wondering and worrying.  Nibelheim, burning.  Her father, dead by the Masamune.  Wielding the blade against the mad General, unhealable wounds, finding Cloud by the train.  Watching a dear friend and later love battle for his sanity.  Finally, death in Mideel, mad with grief, reaching for the wilting flower.</em><br/><br/>For the first time in his life, Sephiroth began to feel the cold blade of panic slip silently beneath the skin.  Aerith walked up to him, slowly unbuttoning the center two buttons on her dress.  "Your gift to me," she said, revealing the long, narrow scar just above her navel.  "My gift to you."  She reached out her hand and was gone.<br/><br/><em>Growing up in Hojo's shadow, never knowing her father, losing her mother, living with Elmyra, hiding from the Turks.  Cloud crashing down into her church.  Seeing Zack in the young soldier, following him to the ends of the Planet.  Feeling his brutal fist in the Temple's foundation, leaving to pray for Holy.  Cold steel burning through her body, laughter colder in her ears.</em><br/><br/>These memories were too much, dragging the god further down.  Vincent and Lucretia stepped up, but it was Lucretia who spoke.  "My son.  It is my sin that I never got the chance to raise you.  My sin that I never held you, that I didn't protect you from the Professor.  I could have saved this world had I only just spoken up.  I could have saved you, my dear child, but I didn't and that is my sin."  She moved forward and wrapped her arms around Sephiroth's body.<br/><br/><em>First meeting a young, ambitious Hojo.  Volunteering for the Jenova Project, being chosen.  Traveling to Nibelheim, meeting Vincent Valentine the Turk, the affair that followed.  Burning Jenova cells entering her body, slowly being poisoned by the creature growing in her womb.  Denying Vincent's love and abandoning herself in her work.  Being torn apart from the inside during childbirth.  Finally, death and halflife beneath the waterfall for thirty years.</em><br/><br/>The number of sins finally counted up in Sephiroth's mind, a certain clairity as he looked from face to face.  His madness dissolved beneath the power of the Lifestream flowing through his body, and the knowledge of so many injustices pressed heavily upon him, driving him to his knees.  Hope blossomed in his eyes as Zack walked up.  "Now you know what happened, Seph," the SOLDIER said, kneeling to look into the god's face.  "All of these lives you destroyed so that you could do what?  Revenge for that Mother of yours?  Gain power?  Bullshit," he spat.  Sephiroth turned his eyes away from his second in command.  "And, you know what?  You ruined my life, too."  The whisper was swallowed in the wind as the remaining souls leaped forward at once, drowning the god in their memories.  Every last one of them died by his hand, directly or indirectly.  No longer was he the one standing strong against the current, no, now he was being swept up by it.  Reflexively, Sephiroth reached out to try and find something to cling to but there was nothing.<br/><br/>When the absinthe glow diminished, there was nothing more than a few specks remaining to float there, a few resilient cells.  A blood red spectre appeared from those handful of cells, a throaty, sultry laughter filling the now silent cavern.  Jenova collected those specks with a glowing hand.  All around her, there was nothing but darkness and the far off sound of rocks shattering.  Looking up to the blackened sky, the phantom sped away from the Planet, leaving the dead and lifeless rock behind.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>There was an epilogue based on me and my sister talking about where we went wrong, the Game Over screen fading to black... it was the reason it was originally called Restart.  that and the quote that started this mess</p>
<p>"I always wondered what happened to the world I reset.... It's only a virtual world, I realize. But thoughts turn into reality. So the world I abandoned by resetting might have been engulfed by evil."<br/>~Bear | .hack//SIGN ep2: Guardian</p>
<p>But I felt that the epilogue cheapened the impact of the fic as a whole, so I removed it.  Without that, though, I didn't feel that "Restart" was a good title.  I didn't change it on dA or FF.net because those were archived.  Here, though, I couldn't bear to post under that title.  So, instead, lyrics to a song I listened to incessantly while writing. </p>
<p>Note: I did clean up a lot of spelling errors</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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